F 

r. ^ THE MILITARY HISTORY OF GREEN BAY 



i; Y 
WILLIAM L. EVANS 



I From Proceedings uf The State Historical Sncietx- nf Wisconsin, iSoa ] 



MADISON 

State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

1900 




ass 



book 






i'i<i;si;xTi:ij uy 



THE MILITARY HISTORY OF GREEN BAY 



BY 

WILLIAM L. EVANS 



[From Proceedings of The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1899] 



MADISON 
State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

1900 









63504 

THE MILITARY HISTORY OF GREEN BAY." 



BY WILLIAM L. EVAN'S. 

Leaving out of consideration the traditions of inter-tribal 
Indian warfare, the military history of Green Bay may be said 
to have begun when Jean l^icolet, in October of 1634, landed 
at th© mouth of the Fox River, and, stepping out of his canoe 
"with all the dignity of an ambassador, advanced slowly, dis- 
charging at the same time two small pistols, which he held in 
either hand."^ Wisconsin was at this time the home of a num- 
ber of small Indian tribes, driven hither evidently by the pow- 
erful Iroquois on the east and the Sioux on the west. The 
absence of powerful Indian nations, and the presence of lesser 
tribes of divergent interests, had a controlling effect upon the 
opening of this section to the forces of civilization.^ l!^icolet 
came to Green Bay with a few Huron Indians for the purpose 
of adjusting troubles between the Hurons and the Winneba- 
goes, or Puants, and the peace he seems to have established is 
significant of the future contact of the white man and the red 
at this point. 

The next white visitors to Green Bay, or, as it was then called, 
La Baye, were Radisson and Groseilliers in 1658 ; but, like 
Nicolet, these adventurous spirits only came and went. Next 
came the Jesuit missionary and the French fur-trader, the for- 
mer destined to make little impress on the savage, but most 
powerfully to effect the opening of civilization, and the latter 

^Address delivered before the Wisconsin State Historical Convention 
at Green Bay, September 6, 1899. 

'Neville and Martin, Historic Green Bay, p. 12. 
■See Turner's "Fur Trade in Wisconsin." 



CQ 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. ^29 

to influence even more potently the future of the country. The 
voyageur, the coureur de hois, and the devoted disciples of 
Loyola needed little military protection from the Indiah, and 
the English had not yet pushed into these domains of ISTew 
France. 

In 1665, ISTicolas Perrot came to La Baye as an independent 
trader. In 1685, for his sterling worth, tact and good judg- 
ment in dealing with the Indians, he was made commander-in- 
■chief at La Baye, with a commission giving him authority in 
A most indefinite way over the regions farther west, and also 
■all those he might discover.^ Under this blanket commission, 
!N"icolas Perrot, with a mere handful of men, half soldiers, half 
traders, assumed military command over a region greater many 
times in size than France itself. 

As yet there are no sources of authority from which we can 
determine the time of the first building of a fort at the Lower 
Fox. There was probably a palisaded enclosure at the mission 
of St. Francis, at De Pere, even in Perrot's time ; but not be- 
fore 1721 do we know of a fort at La Baye. At that time Char- 
levoix was here with M. de jVTontigny, and they were royally 
entertained at the French fort on the west bank of the Fox, 
half a league from its mouth." 

The early wars against the Fox and Sac Indians afford al- 
most the only example of serious conflicts between the French 
and Indians. These tribes, unlike the Menomonees, or Folles 
Avoines, looked with disfavor upon the whites, and were ready 
to seize every opportunity to annoy the traders and hamper the 
fur trade. In 1716, Lieutenant de Louvigny led an attack 
on the Foxes. The French went from La Baye some thirty- 
five or forty miles up the river, and defeated the Foxes after 
A three-days' siege. The two expeditions of De Lignery, com- 
inandaiit at Michillimaekinac, occurred in 1726 and 1728.^ In 

^Tailhan's Perrot, pp. 138, 303; W \ Hist. Colls., x, p. 363. 

-Historic Green Bay, p. 81. 

^Wis. Hist. Colls., i, pp. 21-23; x, pp. 53. 365. 



130 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

June of the former year he effected a sort of peace at La Baye 
with the Foxes, Sacs and Winnebagoes. The Indians appear 
to have wished to have a regular French officer located at this 
point, but it is suggested in a contemporary document that the 
commandant would not favor this, as it would injure his private 
interests. 

De Lignery was again at Fort St. Francis, at the mouth of 
the river, on the 17th of August, 1728. The fort was then in 
charge of a commandant and soldiers. After pretty effectually 
subjugating the Foxes, temporarily at least, with his 400 French, 
soldiers and 1,000 Iroquois Indians, De Lignery, on his return 
to Fort St. Francis in the same year, destroyed it, '^because, 
being so near the enemy, it would not afford a' secure retreat 
to the French who must be left as a garrison." This act, prob- 
ably ill-advised, shows the military hold of the French to have 
been very insecure at this time, although the traders were car- 
rying on extensive operations in spite of the lack of military 
, protection. 

With the coming to La Baye, about 1745, of the De Langlades, 
Ausrustin and Charles, a continuous and connected history be- 
gins. ISFicolet, Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin, Perrot, Allouez,. 
Radisson, Groseilliers, De Louvigny and De Lignery pass be- 
fore us in a shadowy and picturesque unreality. The De Lang- 
lades, while not less picturesque, identified themselves with the 
country, in time took land, built homes, reared families, and 
left a lasting imj^ress. It is very probable that the elder De 
Langlade was with De Lignery's expeditions to La Baye.^ If 
he were not, he in any event heard of the beautiful country of 
the Folles Avoines. Augiistin Grignon, in his "Recollections,"' 
does not remember that his grandfather, Charles de Langlade, 
ever told him whether or not the fort at La Baye was garri- 
soned when he came. ^ A list of the upper French forts in 
1754 refers to La Baye and its dependencies. La Baye then 

^"Grignon's Recollections," pp. 197, 199. 
Ubid., p. 200. 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. ^31 

had one officer, a sergeant, and four soldiers. Eighteen thousand 
dollars' worth of Indian goods were sent annually to this point, 
and the post afforded Messrs. Kigaud and Marin 312,000 francs 
for the years 1754-57. Bellin refers to the fort here in 1751, 
simply as "the French fort," and Palairet calls it Fort Sakisda, 
or Fort of the Sauks.^ 

It is interesting to note La Baye's relations to the forces that 
were working out world problems in the French and Indian 
War. Coulon de Villiers, at one time commandant at La Baye^ 
defeated George Washington at Fort l^Tecessity. Of Charles de 
Langlade's activity in that war, and of his great value to the 
French, more and more is coming to light. From 1752 to 1760 
he was constantly on the move, recruiting Indians and Cana- 
dians at Green Bay and elsewhere, for service in the East. In 
July, 1755, he arrived at Fort Du Quesne with a band of In- 
dians, French and Canadians, including his nephew, Charles 
Gauthier de Verville, and other residents of La Baye. On the 
ninth of the month they met Braddock at the Monongahela. 
The French force was from a thousand to fifteen hundred strong. 
Beaujeu was in command, but De Langlade was the moving 
spirit, and only after the most urgent solicitations could he per- 
suade Beaujeu to act. Sweeping down upon the English at their 
meal time, they drove them back in dismay, many rushing into 
the river and drowning rather than meet death at the hands of 
the howling demons, and being found there later with their nap- 
kins still at their breasts. It is remarkable that De Langlade's 
part in this action has remained in such obscurity. The French 
gave him the honor of the victory, and an English officer in 
Burgoyne's army in 1777 refers to him as the one who "planned 
and executed the defeat of Braddock."^ Continuing to make 
Green Bay his headquarters, he was frequently in the East with 
his lieutenants and their bands of Menomonees, Foxes, Sacs, 
Winnebagoes, Ottawas, and Pottawatomies. They did remarka- 

'L. C. Draper, in Wis. Hist. Colls., x, p. 365. 
= Wis. Hisl. Colls., vii, pp. 130-133. 



-[32 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

ble work at the siege of Fort George, and in 1759 fought upon the 
Plains of Abraham. The next year saw the surrender of Mon- 
treal, the fall of New France, and the beginning of English do- 
minion in Wisconsin. 

It seems altogether probable that to a fear of change in cus- 
toms, habits, and manner of life and trade, rather than to a 
fear of the mere allegiance to another |X)wer over the sea, is 
to be attributed the tenacity of the trader, the settler, and the 
Indian in the contest against the arms of England. We can 
imagine the melancholy and the disgust with which La Baye 
looked upon the collapse of l^ew France and the coming of the 
English. But the result was not so disastrous to their old life 
as they had expected. The military history of Green Bay is 
not its most vital or significant history. The successive waves 
of civilization, French, English and American, which rolled up 
against the savage nations at this point, did not meet strong 
resistance. The Frenchmen, whether voyageur, coureur de hois, 
or established trader, became one with the Indian. They in- 
fluenced and changed the savage. They made him an equal so- 
cially, and a dependent economically and industrially. 

The interests of England being identical with those of France, 
the transfer of allegiance of the inhabitants, and the establish- 
ment of English power, were neither complicated nor trouble- 
some. The De Langlades went to Michillimackinac in 1761, 
took the oath of allegiance to England, and Charles was made 
superintendent of Indian affairs for the Green Bay division. 
French subjects retained all their old civil and religious privi- 
leges. The great affairs of the world were of small moment 
to these people. Their object was not exploration, nor exploita- 
tion, nor the building of a state, but simply the preservation 
•of hunting and the fur trade. Content to be ruled from Eu- 
rope they had no hope nor desire for independent political ex- 
istence, and outside forces acted slowly here. But they were 
•consistent; and the Green Bay trader, whether fighting against 
the English and the colonies in 1760, or against the colonists 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. ^33 

during the Revolution, or lightly shaking off the American au- 
thority in 1812 and rejoining the English, was always fighting 
for the old fashioned fur trade and its easy, hap-hazard mode 
of existence. Little law, large profits, and much rum satisfied 
Indian and trader. The English adopted French methods of 
treating the Indian. 

The English of Green Bay were not the English of the sea- 
board. English fur companies operated along Erench lines, 
and not along the traditional English colonization lines of per- 
manent occupation, stable government, and haughty indiffer- 
ence to the natives. 

The surrender of Montreal in 1760 was the real ending of 
the French and Indian War. The treaty, however, which was 
to fix the territorial results of the war, by which France lost 
the entire J^Torthwest, "which always caused Count de Vergennea 
to shudder whenever he thought of it, and that called out explo- 
sions of volcanic wrath from the first l^apoleon," was not signed 
until 1763, at which time British military occupation of Green 
Bay had not only begun, but was just ending in the departure 
of Lieutenant Gorrell. 

The English troops, under Captain Belfour, came to Green 
Bay on the twelfth of October, 1761, and took possession of Fort 
St. Francis, which they found "quite rotten, the stockade ready 
to fall, the houses without cover," and which they repaired and 
renamed Fort Edward Augustus.^ On the fourteenth, Captain 
Belfour departed and left Lieut. James Gorrell in command, 
with a sergeant, a corporal, and fifteen privates, a French in- 
terpreter, and two English traders. The presence of these 
traders and Sir William Johnson's remark to Gorrell, that un- 
less he did his best to please the Indians he had better not 
go, shows a purpose to protect and promote trade. Gorrell was 
much hampered by the scanty allowance of presents for the In- 
dians made him by the authorities, but he ingeniously restrung 
and rearranged the wampum received from visiting chieftains, 

^"Gorrell's Journal," in Wis. Hist. Colls., i, p. 26. 



234 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

and presented it to others when the English supply ran low. 
"Nothing material happened," says Gorrell, "from this till the 
May ensuing. We mostly busied ourselves during the winter in 
repairing the fort, houses, etc."^ It was a dismal winter at this 
little post, where less than a score of men were representing 
English power and holding Wisconsin and the West for King 
George. 

In a council held with the chiefs of the Menomonees and Win- 
nebagoes on May twenty-third, 1762, the mutual desire of 
Englishman and Indian for trade relations appears. Gorrell 
said to the natives with interesting naivete: "I hope to open 
a passage to your hearts so that you may always speak honestly 
and truly * * * land that you may, like your brothers, the Eng- 
lish, think of good things only. * * * He [the King] hath also 
recommended it to all his subjects who are come amongst you 
to trade, to bring whatever necessaries you may want, and save 
you the trouble of going so far yourselves ; in consequence I have 
brought one along with me, who, you'll find will use your peo- 
ple well and sell everything ais cheap as possible to them."^ The 
Menomonees answered in promises of obedience and friendship, 
declaring that they "are glad to welcome English traders." Gor- 
rell makes the surprising statement that there were dependent 
upon his post at La Baye for supplies, 39,100 warriors, besides 
women and children. In the list which he gives, however, of 
the numbers of the different tribes, it is to be noted that of 
these 30,000 were "Sous" west of the Mississippi, and "near 
300 leagues off," who were in all probability very little con- 
cerned with their dependence upon Fort Edward Augustus. 

During Pontiac's War the fort at Michillimackinac was cap- 
tured, and Colonel Etherington taken prisoner. Through De 
Langlade's efforts he was rescued, but the uprising took such pro- 
portions that it was decided to abandon the Wesit, and Gorrell 
was ordered to leave Fort Edward Augustus. On June twenty- 

* "Gorrell's Journal," p. 27. 
*Ibid., pp. 28, 29. 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. 135 

first, 1763, the troops, with a party of Menomonee, Sac, Win- 
nebago, and Fox Indians left the fort, and as the bateaux and 
canoes passed down the Fox and out into Green Bay, only four 
months after the treaty of Paris had given New France to Eng- 
land, British occupation of Green Bay ended. Joined by the 
remnant from Mackinac, they reached Montreal in August. 

On May twentieth, 1778, Major de ' Peyster, British com- 
mandant at Mackinac, writes to Gen. Sir Guy Carleton that Mr. 
Langlade has just written him that affairs go very slowly at 
La Baye.^ This seems to have been the general movement from 
1763 until the close of the American Revolution. Few new 
traders and fewer settlers came. "At the time Carver was at 
Fort La Baye, September eighteenth, 1766, there was no gar- 
rison there, nor had it been kept in repair since it had been 
abandoned by Gorrell; a few families lived in the fort, and 
opposite to it on the east side of the river there were a few 
French settlers."- During the Revolution, there appears to 
have been no military operations in or about Green Bay, other 
than the work of Charles de Langlade and his nephew, Charles 
Gauthier de Verville, in mustering and holding in line the 
Western Indians to oppose the remarkable and energetic cam- 
paigns of Col. George Rogers Clark, and his shrewd and clever 
negotiations with the Indians. We find these two Green Bay 
men, for instance, on June sixth, 1778, setting out from the Bay 
with a band of 200' Indian and Canadian recruits.^ And when 
they cannot persuade the Indians to fight for the Union jack, 
they do the next best thing and get them to stay at home. April 
twentieth, 1783, Daniel Robertson, in command at Mackinac, 
writes that Mr. Langlade, Jr., would immediately set out for 
Prairie du Chien "in order to dissuade the western Indians who 
assemble there from coming this length."^ The English fully 



^Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, p. 97. 
== Smith's History of Wis., i, p. 145. 
' Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, pp. 110, 111. 
*Ibid., p. 165. 



136 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

understood the value of these serviees, and made generous terms 
with these Green Bay men, though De Peyster wrote on June 
fourteenth, 1779, that tJiej had high pay and were a burden to 
him;^ and Sinclair, his successor at Mackinac, wrote in 1780 
what was certainly untrue, that they were men of no understand- 
ing, application or steadiness." 

The British maintained that the treaty of 1783 did not de- 
termine the right to possession of the Western posts, which they 
continued to hold; and while Jay's treaty, in 1794, gave the 
colonies dominion in the West, it was scarcely more than in 
name. British traders had free intercourse with the savages. 
English fur companies controlled the trade, and until the close 
of the War of 1812-15 there was little to mark the change of 
authority at Green Bay. During that war, the Grignons, John 
Lawe, Jacob Franks, Langevin, Jean Vieau, and others were in 
active concert with Kobert Dickson, the English Indian agent^ 
and rendered effective service to the British. Green Bay was a 
base for supplies and Indian allies.^ 

At the close of the war, the United States determined to have 
something other than the mere shadowy authority heretofore 
exercised, and proceeded to garrison the Western posts, the pos- 
session of which was so long in dispute. In and around Green 
Bay there were thousands of savages, a few French, and fewer 
English, all bitterly antagonistic to the new order of things; 
the intense natural prejudice of the French and Indians against 
the Americans having been skilfully intensified by the designing 
English. The first result of this determination of the Ameri- 
can government to protect the inhabitants, insure permanent do- 
minion, and take to itself the fur trade profits hitherto turned 
into French and English channels, was the arrival in the sum- 
mer of 1815 of John Bowyer, the first United States Indian 
Agent for the Green Bay district, and the establishment here 

> Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, pp.. 135, 139. 
Ubid., p. 149 
"Ibid., pp. 271-315. 



GEEEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. 137 

of a government trading post. An interesting chapter in the 
economic history of Wisconsin is the attempt to control the fur 
trade by government factors under direct military protection, 
with headquarters at the fort. iSTo business, however, was di- 
verted from the old channels ; and the new American Fur Com- 
pany, with Astor as the moving spirit, came in and shrewdly 
followed up the old methods of direct visits to the Indians, ex- 
tension of credit, and plentiful distribution of whiskey and 
presents. It used the old instruments, and assumed the head- 
ship and control of the forces already working. 

It was not a happy crowd that saw the four vessels of Amer- 
ican .troops sail into the mouth of the Fox on the seventh of 
August, 1816. Their disgust w^as fairly well concealed, how- 
ever. The French and Indians contrived to give the troops a 
sort of welcome, through the speech of Nat-aw-pin-daw-qua, a 
Winnebago chief, delivered to Colonel Bowyer on August 23, 
1816, which gives an idea of what was in the Indian mind. He 
asks for protection for his French brothers, says that if it is the 
intention of the Americans to destroy the Indian, he doubts if 
they will be able; that when the French agent resided among 
them they were happy, but that the American agents have 
cheated them.-^ 

From a letter written by the surgeon who accompanied the 
troops, we learn that they '"sailed from Mackinac on the 23d 
of July, with the schooners Washing-ton, Wayne and Mink, and 
the sloop Amelia, having on board Colonel Miller, of the 3d 
Regiment, Colonel Chambers of the Rifle, Major Gratiot of the 
Engineers, a detachment of Artillery under Captain Pierce, and 
four companies of the 3d Infantry, amounting in the whole to 
500 men. We entered the mouth of the river on the 7th of 
August * * * the engineer has finally fixed on the position 
where the old French fort,, La Bay, formerly stood. It wiU 
be a stockade with strong pickets, a bastion at each angle, with 
a piece of artillery on each, amply sufficient to beat off any In- 

'Wis. Hist. Colls., xiii, pp. 444, 445. 



238 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

dian force that can be brought against it — the garrison will 
consist of two companies of infantry, all under the command 
of Colonel Chambers. * * * Everything at present bears a 
peaceable asj>ect, but the storm is murmuring at a distance, 
which, I am fearful, will, sooner or later, burst on us with all 
the accumulated horrors of savage vengeance."^ From this date 
until 1841 the fort, now named Fort Howard, in honor of Gen. 
Benjamin Howard, was continuously garrisoned, with the ex- 
ception of the time spent at Camp Smith, on the east shore. 

The change to American rule was not so disastrous as was ex- 
pected, and the Green Bay loyalists soon accepted the situation. 
By an ingenious legal fiction, these rebels who had, joyfully 
enough, thrown off American authority in 1812, were assumed 
never to have been rebels, upon taking an oath that they had 
been compelled to yield to the tyranny of England and its sav- 
age allies, because the protection of the American government 
was withdrawn. When the old private claims on both sides of 
the Fox River were confirmed to the settlers in 1823, at Detroit, 
it was necessary for each holder to have two or three neighbors 
swear to his loyalty to the United States, and his enforced 
submission to the ''tyranny and caprice" of England. It is 
noticeable, in these confirmations, that the most aggressive in 
the British cause had no trouble in proving their loyalty to the 
United States during the struggle.- 

Maj. Zachary Taylor, afterward president of the United 
States, succeeded Colonel Miller ; and his daughter, Knox, who 
became Mrs. Jefferson Davis, was here as a child. In 1819, 
Colonel Joseph Lee Smith assumed command. Colonel Smith 
was not satisfied with the location of the fort, and in 1820 had 

^Wis. Hist. Colls., xiii, pp. 441-443. This letter establishes the time 
of the landing of the American troops, as August 7. Being a contem- 
porary document, it is no doubt correct. Augustin Grignon (in Wis. 
Hist. Colls., iii, p. 281) says it was July 16; and James H. Lockwood 
(Id., ii., p. 104) puts it in July — both of them spoke from memory. 

-Amer. State Papers, Public Lands, iv, pp. 704, 709. 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. ^39 

it removed to the other side of the river, some three miles further 
up stream, and on high ground a half mile back from the river. 
This was at what was subsequently called Shantytown. Old 
residents at Green Bay were wont to say that it was John Lawe's 
•desire to have the fovt located upon his own. lands, and his con- 
tinual representations of it as the more desirable location, which 
influenced the officer rather than real military advantage. How- 
ever, the garrison was back at Fort Howard in 1822 ; Camp 
Smith, which had been named in honor of the commanding 
officer, being abandoned. In 1821, Smith had been succeeded 
by Col. Xinian Pinckney, and in 1822 Col. John Mcl^eil was 
in command. In 1824 Gen. Hugh Brady commanded, being 
succeeded the following year by Maj. William Whistler, who, 
in 1827, led the expedition of volunteers, regulars, and Stock- 
bridge and Oneida Indians against Red Bird. 'Seav the Fox- 
Wisconsin portage this Indian warrior surrendered to Whistler 
without battle, though he had previously engaged in several 
fierce attacks on the whites. ^laj. (later General) David E. 
Twiggs succeeded Whistler. In 1828, Col. William Lawrence 
came with four companies oi the Fifth infantry from Jefferson 
Barracks through the Fox-Wisconsin portage, not having to 
imload their boats, the water being unusually high that year. 

During the Black Hawk War (1832) the garrison at Fort 
Howard was under the command of Capt. Xathan Clark. 
There was little exact information concerning the strength of 
the Indians, and absurd nunors as to their numbers and vin- 
dictive cruelty were rife. That utter dread of an Indian up- 
rising, amounting almost to consternation, which seized the 
Western settlers, was felt in extreme form here, although the 
soldiers remained at the fort for the protection of the surround- 
ing inhabitants. The Indian agent, George Boyd, was, how- 
ever, able to get 300 Menomonees to the fi*ont under his 
predecessor, Col. C. S. Stambaugh, whom they had requested 
as a leader in the event of their being called on to fight. 
There were other white officers in the company, as well 



140 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

as a few volunteers under Robert Irwin, Jr.^ The war was so- 
soon over, however, that the massacre of a fleeing band of Sacs 
was the only ''service" of this so-called "Stambaugh expedition.'^ 

The next year. Black Hawk, now a prisonerj was in Green 
Bay, coming down the river with the soldiers on his tour to the 
East.^ It is significant that the Americans were able at this 
time to lead red men into battle against red men; and though 
personal enmity to the Sacs may have somewhat influenced the 
Menomonees, it is evident that like objects and aims to the 
French and English had led the American to the same consider- 
ate, conciliatory, non-aggressive treatment of the Indian which 
was accountable for the seldom-interrupted peace of two cen- 
turies which marked the contact of red man and white about the 
mission, trading station, and military post at La Baye, 

Gen. George M. Brooks was in command during the 30's. 
Bishop Jackson Kemper, in his journal, relates that in the sum- 
mer of 1834 he dined at the fort with the General. Under date 
of July 2-i, he has the following entry : ''Dined at Mr. Whit- 
ney's at jSTavarino;" besides others there were ''nearly a dozens 
oflScers from the garrison in full uniform — pitcher full of lem- 
onade and port, madeira and champagne, wines and roast pig,, 
veal, ham, venison and veal pie — sallid — cranberry (abound 
here) tarts and floating islands — cheese, raisins, almonds, Eng- 
lish walnuts and filberts. The two doctors of the fort drank 
no wine — have established a Soc. there which now included 80 
odd on principle of total abstinence. Lieut. Clary belongs to^ 
it likewise."^ 

^E. H. Ellis, of Green Bay, and Sam. Ryan, of Appleton, are author- 
ity for the statement that the company of white volunteers were raised 
and commanded by Robert Irwin, Jr. It has usually been stated that 
they were under Alexander J. Irwin, as in Mrs. Kinzie's Waubun and 
Neville and Martin's Historic Green Bay. Alexander J. Irwin seems to 
have been a first lieutenant and acting quartermaster in the Indian com- 
pany under Stambaugh. See "Boyd Papers," Wis. Hist. Colls., xiii, 
p. 279. 

" Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, p. 226. 

^IMd., xiv, p. 415. 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. i^^ 

Lieut. Robert E. Clary was first lieutenant in the Fifth in- 
fantry from 1833 to 1838. Randolph B. Marcy, who became 
inspector general of the United States army, was a second lieu- 
tenant in the same regiment, and here during the same time. 
His daughter Ellen became the wife of Gen. Greorge B. Mc- 
Clellan. Most of the under ofRcers at the fort, from 1820 to 
1^41 were West Pointers, although I believe that no West 
Pointer except Capt. Moses E. Merrill, who succeeded General 
Brooks, was ever in command.^' Social relations between the 
garrison and the townspeople were most cordial, and brilliant 
social functions took place in the fort, at the hotels and at the 
residences of the better class of civilians. 

The Eifth infantry went to Florida in 1841, and was subse- 
quently in the Mexican War, our fort being ungai'risoned until 
1849. At the battle of Molino del Rey, Capt. Moses E. Mer- 
rill, Martin Scott, and Kirby Smith, were killed, and Lieut, 
(later Colonel) William Chapman was wounded. Martin Scott 
is probably the most picturesque character of the American occu- 
pation. He was a man who thoroughly enjoyed life — 'a great 
hunter, a horseman, and a famous shot. Those who knew him 
here and at Mackinac, still delight to tell stories of his skill; 
of his throwing two potatoes in the air, and piercing them both 
with a single shot; of the coon that offered to come down from 
the tree when it saw Scott below ; and of the duel where the gen- 
erous Martin so skilfully shot away the diseased portion of his 
adversary's liver as to restore him to better health than he had 
before known. He never took aim, simply looked at an ob- 
ject, and fired, the butt of the gun at his hip. Rows of dog ken- 
nels lined the path to his front door, and out to the southwest 

^ The following list has been prepared by Henley W. Chapman, of 
Green Bay, from Cullom's Biographical Register of the Graduates of the 
United States Military Academy, and is believed to contain the name 
of every West Point graduate who was ever stationed at Fort Howard. 
Many who were cadets at that institution, but did not graduate, were at 
Fort Howard, and do not appear in this list. John C. Robinson, for 
instance, who was at the fort in 1839 as a second lieutenant, and later 



142 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



-of the fort was Scott's half-mile race track. In the gentler arts 

of floriculture and horticulture he was also noted ; and flowers, 

shrubs, and trees transformed his own grounds into a veritable 

little park. 

was a major general in the army, was at West Point for three years, but 
did not graduate. 

■Officers Stationed at Fort Howard, Wis., who rvre Graduates of the U. 8. Military 
Academy, from 1S20 to 1H52. 



Name. 



Alexander R. Thompson 

Hilary Branot 

Henry Smith 

Benj. L. E. Bonneville . . 

Henry H Lorins 

John B. F. Russell 

Benjamin Walker 

Lewis N . Morris 

Wm. S. Maitland 

Otis Wheeler 

Henry Brambridge 

St. Clair Denny 

Geortre Wright 

David Hunter 

John D. Hopson 

Aaron M . Wright 

Henry Clark 

■Oeorae H. Crossman. . . . 

John W. Cotton 

Edmund B. Alexander .. 

Egbert B. BirdsaU 

Ephraim W. Low 

Alexander Johnston 

Wm. Bloodgood 

Timothy Paige , 

Wm. R. Montgomery. .. , 

Gustavus Dorr 

James Engle 

Amos B Eaton 

Moses E. Merrill 

E. Kirby Smith 

Alexander S. Hooe 

David Perkins 

Alexandej' J. Center 

Edgar M. Lacey 

Isaac Lvnde 

Robert E. Clary 

James L. Thompson . . . 

Amos Foster 

Caleb C. Sibley 

Camillus C. Daviess 

George W. Patten 

George W. McClure 

Wm. Chapman 

Horatio P. Van Cleve.. 

Charles Whittlesey 

Lorenzo Sitgreaves 

Randolph B. Marcy 

James V. Bomford 

Henry W. Wessells 

Daniel Haggles 

James W. Anderson 

Wm. M. D. McKi:sack. 
Marsena R.Patrick .. .. 

Joseph H. Whipple 

Robert A. Wainwright . 

Samuel Whitehom 

Ben.iam'n D. Forsyth .. 

Elisha G. Marshall 

Henry C. Hodges 



Rank while at Fort 
Howard. 


Years at Fort 
Howard. 


Brt -Major 6th Inf 


1826. 


1st Lt. 3d Inf 

2d Lt. 2d Inf 


1820-21 . 
1822 


Lt.-Col. 4th Inf 


1851-52. 


1st Lt. 3d Inf 


1820-26. 


Capt. 5th Inf 


1832-33. 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 

1st Lt. 3d Inf 

2d Lt. 4th Art 


1822-23. 
1821-26. 
182C-21 . 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 


1821-22; 1823-24. 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 

1st Lt. 5th Inf .. 

2d Lt. 3d Inf 


1821-22. 
1828-36. 
1822-24; 1826. 


1st Lt. 5th luf 

2d Lt. 3d laf 


1832-33. 
1823-26 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 


1822-23. 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1828-29. 


2d Lt. 6th Inf 


1823-24. 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 


1824-25 . 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 


1825-26 . 


2d Lt. 3d liif 


1825-26 


2d Lt. 1st Inf 


1824-25. 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1829-30. 


2d Lt. 2d Inf 


1826-28. 


2d Lt. 1st Inf 


1825 . 


2d Lt. 3d Inf 


1826 


2d Lt. 6th Inf 


1826-27 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1831-33. 


1st Lt. 2d Inf 


1837 


Capt. 5th Inf 


1832-41. 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1827-29 ; 1832-33 ; 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 

2d Lt. .5th Inf . 


1836-37. 

1828-31. 
1829-3 1 . 


2d Lt 5th Inf 


1829-31. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


18^8-29; 1830-31. 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1832-37 . 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1833-38. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1829-32. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 

2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1831-32. 
1832-36. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1830-31. 


1st Lt. 2d Inf 


1837. 


2d Lt. Bth Inf 


1830-31. 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


18:«-38. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1831. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1832. 


2d Lt. Top. Eng 


1839-40. 


1st Lt 5th Inf 


1833-37 . 


2d Lt. 2d Inf 


18:^7. 


2d Lt. 2d Inf 


1837. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1836-37. 


2d Lt. 2d Inf 


1837. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


183.5-36. 


2d Lt. 2d Inf 


1837. 


2d Lt. 5th luf 


1837. 


2d Lt. 5th Inf 


1835-36. 


1st Lt. 5th Inf 


1836-37 ; 1839-40 


2d Lt. 4th Inf 


1849-52. 


2d Lt. 4th Inf 


1850-51. 


2d Lt. 4th Inf 


1851-52. 







GKEEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. 



143 



Old settlers sometimes state that Jefferson Davis was stationed 
here ; but this is not trne, although he visited the fort, and on 
one occasion went deer hunting up Devil River, with Moses 
Hardwick. The boat was capsized, and Hardwick assisted Davis 
out; but he used frequently to say that if he could have peered 
into the future, the waters of the Little Devil River would have 
ended the career of the future president of the Southern Con- 
federacy. 

In the brief occupation of the fort from 1849 to 1851, Col. 
Francis Lee and Lieut. -Col. Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, both 
of the Fourth regiment of infantry, were in command. From 
1852 forward, the fort was without a garrison. During the War 
of Secession, a volunteer company was stationed there part of the 
time, assisting in 1863 in the enforcement of the draft, and 
holding drafted men there until they were forwarded to the front. 
Curtis R. Merrill, as provost marshal, was in charge of the draft. 
There was some opposition to it in the eastern portion of the 
county, and at one time a party of some two hundred Belgians^ 
among whom were a number of women, came in with pitch-forks, 
brooms, etc., and were going to lynch Timothy O. Howe, whom 
they had concluded was responsible for the draft. The Senator 
caane down town and addressed them on Pine street, where they 
disbanded, no serious consequences following. 

The smoothing hand of time, hurried here by the enterprise 
of railway construction, has obliterated almost every vestige of 
the old fort and the natural monuments in and about it.-^ In the 
yards to the north of the Chicago & !N"orthwestern railway sta- 
tion, however, — between the tracks and the bank" of Fox River, 
close to the latter, and due west from Elevator A. of the W. W. 

^For most of the matter with reference to the present remains of the 
old fort, its condition, and the situation of buildings in its later days, I 
am indebted to Thomas M. Camm and Henley W. Chapman, of Green 
Bay, both of whom were born in the old fort (the former in 1828 and the 
latter in 1837), and to James H. Elmore, who was about the fort more 
than any other person during its last days and at the time it was being 
torn down; and scattered. 



^44 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Cargill Co., which stands in the river on piles, — -may be seen the 
stone foundation of the old government (or commissary's) ware- 
house. This building stood outside the fort stockade, some sixty 
feet nearer to the river, and just north from the sallyport. It 
had three stories above the basement. In 1862 and 1863, it was 
used as a warehouse by Dousman & Elmore, and was later re- 
moved by Hiram Cornell to Valentine, ISTebraska, where for a 
time it w^as used as the county court house and where it was 
lately still standing. On the river shore a few feet to the south 
of this old foundation, and in front of where the sallyport used 
to be, there can be seen at low water the piles of stones which 
were in the cribs in the foundation of the fort pier. The soli- 
tary elm in the railway yards, a short distance to the north of the 
oil tanks, stood some forty feet from the rear or west side of the 
stockade, and just south of the commanding officer's quarters. 
In that level expanse of gravel, ties, and steel rails, with here and 
there little patches of smoke-begrimed grass, only these three 
memorials of the past help the old resident to point out and ex- 
actly locate the buildings of the fort; and unless other monu- 
ments be raised there will soon be nothing to mark the place of 
the first military occupation of Wisconsin, the post from which 
Trance sought to hold half a continent, and around which, as no 
other, are grouped the significant military facts in our history. 

The most of the old stockade, about twelve feet high, consist- 
ing of timbers fram ten inches to a foot square, and closely set 
together, with numerous loop-holes, splayed within for observa- 
tion and for firing, stood until the last. This stockade and the 
fort buildings were always kept of a dazzling whiteness. The 
cemetery was at the southwest of the fort, on a sandy knoll which, 
however, like the surrounding country, was very low. In dig- 
ging, water was reached a short distance below the surface, and 
soldiers used to say that they would hate to die at Fort Howard, 
as it was bad enough to die without being drowned afterward. 

Outside the stockade, and some fifty feet to the south stood the 
square, stone magazine, with metal doors and roof, nothing of 



GREEN BAY MILITARY HISTORY. ^45 

which remains — if we except bhe key, now in the possession 
■of James H. Elmore. This arrangement of a magazine outside 
the fort, has been commented on as unusual and unwise. South 
of this stood the hospital, which has been removed to the north- 
east corner of Chestnut avenue and Kellogg street, in the city 
of Green Bay, and is now occupied as a residence. Its eight 
solid wood Pinal's, supporting the roof of the deep porch along 
the entire front ; its long sweep of roof running straight dowTi to 
the top of the first story, broken in front by the three dormer 
windows of the second story, and in the rear by dormer win- 
dows and cliimneys; and the panelled doors^ with frames of 
•colonial effect — ^all these convey a fair idea of the fort's architec- 
ture. The pi"^sent stanch ap}>earance of the hospital speaks well 
for its material and workmanship. It was one of the largest and 
l)est of the buildings, and in the old days was the scene of many 
A festivity. Balls were given here by the oflScers, and its use was 
also tendered to the town "bloods'" for social functions. Pre- 
sumably there were no patients in those hilarious days. To the 
rear of this building, and detached from it, fronting on Chest- 
nut avenue and also used as a dwelling, stands wdiat used to be 
the rear portion of the hospital. 

South of the hospital, and at about the point where now stands 
the express office of the new Chicago & N^orthwestern railway 
station, was the surgeons' quarters, occupied by Maj. Ephraim 
Shaylor, a veteran of the war of 1812-15, when he was in charge 
of the fort buildings from 1852 until its grant to the railway 
company. It might be mentioned that at the time the company 
took possession, in 1862, the fort w^as intact, and upon the com- 
pany devolved the task of tearing down, giving away, and ped- 
dling out the several buildings. Between 1841 and 1849 also, 
the fort had not been garrisoned, and Major Shaylor was in 
charge most of this time. This officer was a rigid Presbyterian, 
and a nervous, fidgety man. He went with his wife one day, 
in the later 40's, to visit William Root, who had earlier been 



